19 April 2005
The Jodi Mattes Accessibility Awards for website accessibility in museums, libraries and archives have been announced.
The awards give recognition to web sites which demonstrate practical and imaginative ways of making online cultural and learning resources accessible to disabled people and are organised by the Museums libraries and Archives Council (MLA).
At a ceremony in London the MLA also launched a new report revealing that the sector's compliance with web accessibility standards is above the national average.
The level of compliance with the basic accessibility guidelines, WAI Level A, is over twice that found by the Disability Rights Commission in an audit undertaken last year.
The winner of the main excellence award was www.webwords.org, Library and Information Services, Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead.
This website provides audio extracts of some 500 audio books, allowing visually impaired people - and every user - to choose their preferred narrator. The judges said: "It allows users glimpses into a book, much like browsing printed books does. Web words has the enormous advantage that it can be used by other libraries."
Chris Batt, MLA chief executive, said: "Web accessibility is not an optional extra: it is an essential element of effective online communications. I hope that web managers throughout our sector will implement the recommendations outlined in this new report."© DeHavilland Information Services plc
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